BLIGHT-WING DING-A-LING

The Microsoft drivel goes: "Where would you like to go today?" The truth of the matter is that the query should be "Where would you like to make-believe you are going today?" Anyone who really imagines that a cathode-ray image is anything other than a cathode-ray display, is someone who needs to be confined in order to protect the community. Everything on the screen you are now gawking at is make-believe, pure and simple. Cut a power line, or pull a plug, and the whole Internet scene vanishes quicker than a jew at a swastika christening ceremony. The whole blight-wing Internet "movement" is pure make-believe and this is one of the reasons that I firmly assume that censorship of the Internet simply will not happen. Threats of censorship, yes, but actual censorship, no, for it serves the purposes of our masters to allow us to yammer, back and forth, endlessly. In addition, it also allows them to yodel their support for the First Amendment. It also serves the purposes of our masters to allow the Zündels of the world to stage go-nowhere shows to keep the boobs in a dither. So absurd is the revisionist dancing, that it even allows non-Whites such as Ingrid Rimlander to ally herself with the non-Canadian Ernst Zündel even though they have opposite views of the holy cusp.

One can notice additional examples of "farting in a whirlwind" on the ill-named "newsgroups." Several blight-wing nincompoops are actually bickering over the biological classifications of the aliens who are colonizing many areas of this United States. If your house is infested with vermin, I don't care if you call them ants or termites, maggots or worms, mice or rats. Instead of blowing fetid hot air from their lips, they should forget the make-believe and grab the Raid, or Zyklon B, whichever is preferred.

There appears to be two distinct mentalities in the blight-wing: (1) the arrogantly ignorant, and (2) the sophomoric debaters.

The first type is an odd breed. I remember such an example which I happened to encounter about one year ago. A fellow with virtually no background in mathematics, presented me with a puzzle which apparently intrigued him -- something about filling a bath tub with water running in while the drain was open. I mentioned that it was a problem which could be solved using a first-degree differential equation. I proceeded with a few pencil scribbles and presented him with a solution to which he responded, "You are full of shit." That represents one end of the blight-wing.

At the other extreme, of this batch of loonies, are the compulsive debaters. Keeping in mind that "debate" is from the Old French meaning "the (to) beat" (as in whipped cream) and you'll get some idea of what discussions with these Stone Henge stoneheads are all about. They literally beat all, and everything, to death verbally. They bicker because it is a contest to them. They are not interested in learning anyone's point of view, or even new facts -- they want to prove to themselves that no one knows it like they do. The "news groups" are to the Internet as Nero was to Rome. They fiddle while the maggots fatten in the pantry.

Both types have a common attribute: they are ego-centric and are convinced that if they don't believe it, or don't know it, then it's not worth discussing. They both assume a bigoted position and will defend it to the point of: "Mom, we lost the game but won the fight afterwards."

Every once in a while my foolish optimism allows me the luxury of making believe that someone -- out there in that electronic wasteland -- is really interested in learning something. A case in point:

I think we have all heard that "cooking destroys enzymes." We should also be aware that vegetarian cults have been springing up, from time to time, over the past several centuries apparently in synchronization with UFO sightings and the geysers of Yellowstone. Some of the modern versions have latched upon the above quote and made it into an axiom, and in some bizarre instances, a platform. I asked a disciple what was meant by "cooking" and by "enzyme." I shall not repeat the moronic response. When he was charged with the expedient of using a dictionary, I was verbally assaulted with "I don't need a dictionary to tell me what's right!" Of course not. He already knew everything that was worthwhile to know.

Cooking is little other than a treating of food with heat. An egg, removed from the refrigerator and allowed to warm to room temperature, is being treated with heat. However, in the general use of the term, we associate cooking with temperatures which we would find very uncomfortable. Warming soup to 185 degrees Fahrenheit, is cooking. Boiling spinach is cooking. Roasting, where temperatures reach the 350 degree mark is also cooking and we sometimes refer to this as baking. Frying, where fat temperatures reach nearly 400 degrees, is also cooking.

Since cooking involves chemical changes, many Italian chefs call it cooking regardless of whether heat was involved. A lemon juice marinade changes the protein bonds in a piece of beef. Thus, we hear this pickling process sometimes referred to as cooking.

Inside of our bodies, complex molecules are broken down into more simple molecules and often cooking provides the same function. A polysaccharide, such as table sugar, may be "disassembled" into simple sugars either by cooking with an organic acid such as found in lemon juice, or during digestion. In this latter case, the first steps in digestion may be performed in a sauce pan -- not exactly a horrible, or unhealthy thing to do.

Cooking, as we proceed through a range of temperature increases, causes various chemical changes in the food. A boiled potato has its starch polymers hydrolyzed. Otherwise, the starch molecule's carbon-hydrogen-oxygen bond structure remains unchanged. As the temperature mounts, continued chemical deterioration occurs with the results determined by the original substance. When a human body is cremated, one could say that it is cooked to a fine degree. (Everyone of my 69 relatives were cooked at Auschwitz.) All that would remain in this case would be a batch of minerals in the form of oxides, carbonates, phosphates, etc. Does cooking destroy the value of food? Does cooking destroy enzymes? If our cooking meant cremation, or charring, then the answer is in the affirmative. But what of enzymes?

Enzymes are proteins which serve as catalysts in the chemistry of cells. All living cells contain enzymes which are specific to that cell's function. As Buchner proved in 1897, cells may be destroyed while the enzymes are left intact. Enzymes undergo decompositions similar to other proteins. Most cooking involves relatively small changes, that is, unless one goes to an extreme such as burning.

While we are in the Internet land of make-believe, let's assume that even the heat of a summer day will destroy the enzymes in a prune. Should we worry?

All mammals require animal protein when they are infants. In mother's milk, we find some enzymes which are very beneficial, although not absolutely necessary, for the infant. The plant eaters outgrow their need for animal protein (milk) and their body chemistry undergoes a change whereby they can exist entirely upon plants. The meat eaters, and the part time meat eaters, never go through this complete change and require animal protein to some degree, or the other, for the remainder of their lives. However, except for the infant stage, no mammal requires the intake of any enzymes whatsoever since they are tailor-made within that animal's body. So, whether enzymes are destroyed or not -- except in the case of infants -- is unimportant. A cow, for example, needs specific enzymes for the digestion of grass. It is ludicrous to state that a cow needs the same enzymes for digestion as does the grass for it's photosynthesis. What the cow needs, the cow makes. What the grass needs, the grass makes. The cow needs cow enzymes, not grass enzymes.

The above is my interpretation of what I have found in various technical books - not food-fad or cult books! Anyone can easily follow the same footsteps through their own university, or home town library. As I start to snigger to myself, I can hear the voices of the above two types of blight-wingers. The first (the arrogant ignorant) will say without hesitation, "You are full of shit!" The second (the neurotic debaters) will insist that I produce documentation. If I were so foolish as to play their inane game, they would respond with their documentation. Then it would be my turn, and the circle-jerk would limp along ad infinitum, or until they tired of the volleys and reply, "You are full of shit!"

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Robert Frenz

21 April 1998